eferential microsystems were in wide-spread evidencein the conceptual art of the day. Taken together, theybelong to a post-duchampian rationalism for whichDuchamp 's own Three Stoppages-etalon may haveprovided the model. Random shapes accompaniedby a measuring stick which serves to conserve andestablish a reference for these isolated products ofchance, rescued from contingency.From the abundance of visual records of Simonds'work, let me extract only two by way of characterization.First, there is a still from the three-minute film,Birth, which takes us back to the early years of hiscareer.with the fertility of the earth, with Ceres, or with rivergods of antiquity. In some of them, the artist even sowedseeds, which sprouted to form a symbolic source ofhuman nutrition.Simonds' erotization of forms and gestures, his libidinousappropriation of the environment, indeed conveya clear message. They are more than spontaneousexpressions, because they are overlain with a culturalgesture. There can be no doubt that the abrupt, openbody-language recorded in Birth conveys more thana mere wish to identify with a maternal paradise. Thestatement addresses the issue of Action Painting, orAbstract Expressionism. Its intuitive gestures are meantto the Freudian method, of course, is found in archaeology,its fascination by relics and ruins, its restorationwork aimed at bringing the strata of buried memoriesback to light.The clay from which Simonds emerges in the filmwas subsequently to become the sole prima materiaof his art. This is corroborated by many of the artist'sown statements: "In my own personal mythology I wasborn from the earth, and many of the things I do areaimed at refreshing and articulating that awarenessfor myself and others. LandscapeBodyDwellingis a process of transformation of land into body, bodyinto land ... " The finely articulated clay Dwellings accor-Simonds made the short film in 1970, with a fixed camera dingly allude to human forms, especially to breasts andset up in a New Jersey clay-pit. The strange liturgy capturedin Birth can be seen to form a basis for all of the body-landscape. As Diane Waldman has pointed out,vagina. They have the character of refuges in a femaleartist's work to come. Not just another variation of body "Simonds' sculptures are also organic in nature andart or the process of self-discovery so rampant at the erotic in form and content. In his respect his worktime, the film establishes the raison d'etre of the reuvre. recalls that of Claes Oldenburg, whose concept ofIt demonstrates the artist's initial, tentative attempts erotizing the environment was considered highlyto penetrate physically into the realm of his imagination. innovative in the 1960s."We are present at a rite of spring, an evocation of rebirth With Simonds, this panerotic sculptural approach camefrom the chthonic, primeval slime. This gesticulating ritual to the fore in a number of pieces such as Number 9has a great deal to do with wish-fulfilment, an uninhibitedimmersion of the body in the universal abundance. the material appears to be in the process of ingestion.(Ritual Garden), Ground Bud, or Stone Sprout, in whichIn another ceremonial work, BodyEarth, an extendedTo explain the work, it is important to note that Freudian body presses itself into the earth. This theme waspsychology and its terms played key, and threatening, developed in a series of further works. In Landscapepart in Simonds' boyhood and youth. In his conversa- BodyDwelling, Simonds covered his body with claytion with Abadie, he recalled that: "The Little People and projected an image of his miniature world ontohave their origin in my attempts as a child to escape my this living, breathing surface primed with the naturalparents, my education-that of a son of a psychoanalyst material-a Creator mundi toying with the universeof the Vienna school." And one of the closest analogies on his own body. Other works called up associationsto show the artist in a state, or to induce a state in him,in which he sheds historical constrictions to become amedium for universal metaphysical forces. Similarly, theimpulsive gestures of Action Painting were considered ameans of liberation from societal and historical preconditions.Looking at Simonds' dancing movementsin the film Birth, the way in which the choreographygradually draws him out of the mud, one is inadvertentlyreminded of the prototype of such pathos-filledself-representations, Jackson Pollock. In Hans Namuth 'sfamous films we see Pollock's strange gesticulations,the spasmic trance in which he ultimately lost himselfin the picture he was working on. The presence of thecamera apparently goaded him to ever more freneticrhythms and movements. Simonds' Birth can be tracedback through Pollock to the ecriture automatique ofthe Surrealists, and even to the initiation rites of theRomantic Era.The second eloquent photograph I have singled out15
«BodyEarth», film de I by David Troy, 1971tration extreme apres Ia scene dionysiaque, I' applicationlaborieuse apres Ia sortie de terre liberatrice. Simonds,muni d'une pince a epiler, construit un Dwelling avecdes briques crues mesurant a peine huit millimetres.Sur Ia photographie, Ia tete et Ia main paraissent gigantesques.Le cadrage les coupe de maniere a nous fairedecouvrir le monde miniature sur lequel le microchirurgiense penche avec beaucoup de precaution. Samethode de travail fait penser au montage des microprocesseurs,bien plus qu'a Ia concretisation d'un elanexpressif.De fait, a examiner de pres les reuvres de Simonds quel'on a pu conserver, ou les photographies des autres,on s'apen;:oit que ses constructions se caracterisent pardes plans tres compliques et des formes multiples. Ontrouve Ia des agencements circulaires, des pyramides,des portes monumentales, des tumulus, des labyrintheset jamais deux fois Ia meme configuration. Les formes,mais aussi les couleurs, passent par les modulations lesplus subtiles. II faut sans doute y voir une composantefondamentale du message de !'artiste, qui souligne Ianature unique, non reproductible, des choses du passe.(Une remarque a ce propos : lorsque Simonds a commence,dans les annees soixante-dix, a utiliser desformes architecturales dotees de connotations archeologiquespasseistes, il repondait ainsi a Ia croyanceencore intacte en Ia modernite de Ia ville. Aujourd'hui,ces reuvres nous apparaissent sous un jour different.L'architecture postmoderne a recupere bon nombre deleurs configurations, transposees en grandeur reelle.Dans le contexte du repertoire de formes postmodernes,les projets architecturaux de Simonds revetentune nouvelle dimension critique. lis ont l'air d'evoquerun present en ruine.)Les deux documents mettent face a face deux attitudescontraires : Ia spontaneite et le calcul. Or, elles determinentensemble l'reuvre de Charles Simonds. Commele fait craindre !'opposition hyperbolique entre petit etgrand, on risque fort de chercher eternellement une ported'entree dans les Dwellings. On dirait que Simonds tentede s'emparer de !'instrument necessaire pour forcer leverrou derriere lequel est enferme son univers chimeriqueen reduction. En vain. Le desir doit rester l'uniquemoyen d'acces a son monde imaginaire. Dans ces conditions,les villes fant6mes sont egalement desertees par16
- Page 2: Galerie Enrico Navarra
- Page 8 and 9: Preface. Enrico NavarraForeword. En
- Page 10 and 11: Le Monde dans le monde. Werner Spie
- Page 12 and 13: of adventures. The Little People we
- Page 16 and 17: •LandscapeBodyDwellin9", 1970Char
- Page 18 and 19: in which Raquel Welch accompanies A
- Page 20 and 21: •Picaresque Landscape•, 1976, i
- Page 22: I Remember... Jean-Louis PratI reme
- Page 26 and 27: Ritual Place, 1970Argile et bois13
- Page 28 and 29: Labyrinth, 1972Argile et bois30x63x
- Page 31: 32Pyramid, detail I detail, 1972
- Page 34 and 35: elieved in a world entirelywould be
- Page 36 and 37: Circles and Towers Growingno11, 197
- Page 39: Dwelling, details, 1981Argile et bo
- Page 44 and 45: Age, 1983Argile, platre et bois310
- Page 47 and 48: Flying Smear, 1983Argile, bois et p
- Page 49 and 50: Wilted Towers, 1984Argile et bois30
- Page 53 and 54: Rocks no 1 , 1984Rocks No. 1, 1984T
- Page 55 and 56: Stump, 1984Argile et bois35,5 x 61
- Page 57 and 58: Pod no 2, 1984Argile et bois29,2 x
- Page 60 and 61: Leaves, 1986Argile et bois15x61 x61
- Page 62 and 63: Smear, 1986Argile et bois15,2 x 76,
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Rocks, 1988Rocks, 1988Spirit Rocks,
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Pyramid, 1991Argile, platre et bois
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Dwelling, 1991Argile et boisBriques
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Head, 1993Argile, platre et bois67,
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Tumbleweed, 1993Porcelaine20,5 x 20
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I, Thou, 1993Argile et ciment37,5x2
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Man and Fish, 1993Argile et bois25
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82Growth House, detail I detail, 19
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Maze, 1998 Maze, 1998Argile et bois
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Houseplant no 2, 1998Houseplant No.
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Long Rocks, 2000Argile, platre et s
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Sans titre, 2001Argile. platre et t
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Charles Simonds, 1950 «Rabbit Read
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Greene Street Dwelling, New York, 1
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••Excavated and Inhabited Railr
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Charles Simonds travaillant I worki
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«Dwelling•, Whitney Museum, New
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Desert en fleur, Nouveau-Mexique I
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Travaillant sur «Age .. I Working
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«Passage .. , 1989, Centre Georges
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Expositions I ExhibitionsExposition
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-"9th Biennale de Paris", Musee d'A
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charles simondsSculpture Since 1940
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Simonds), Cologne, Germany, Verlag
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Kind, Joshua- "Charles Simonds: An
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125
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Edite par I Published by: Galerie E
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